


Purgatory

by Shadaras



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 09:32:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/pseuds/Shadaras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after 1.12</p>
<p>Abigail wakes up, unsure of where she is or what's going on. When she gets the answer, she likes it less than her previous uncertainty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purgatory

She woke out of a nightmare, out of pain and betrayal, to a suspiciously ordinary room. Sheets wrapped around her, tucked almost painfully tight around her. Wood ceiling, not rough like her father’s cabin, but ordinary – if not painted or covered – beams. For a moment, Abigail waited, listening for any signs of life around her. She didn’t have an IV inserted in her, and this wasn’t a hospital room. That was good, at least. She couldn’t hear anyone in the room with her; surprising, considering that Hannibal had apologized for not being able to protect her, and that her last clear memory was Hannibal's voice, rich and accented so that she couldn’t quite follow, but she’d thought he’d implied she would die.

This room didn’t seem very much like death, though. Abigail turned her head to the right, where light shone through what she thought – and confirmed – was a window, sheer curtains obscuring her view without dimming the light. Nothing else to see, as far as she could tell. Just the wall – the same plain, smooth-cut wood as the ceiling. To the left – she winced, turning to the left. The side of her head hurt as she put pressure on it, and something felt wrong. Carefully, she returned to staring up at the ceiling and worked her arms free of the cloth pinning her.

As soon as her arms were free, she reached up and felt the side of her head. Cloth. The same sort as she’d had on her neck. What had happened to the side of her head? She didn’t dare press harder; doing so would only invite pain, and likely a lecture from whoever had bandaged her so carefully – Hannibal? A doctor? She couldn’t bring herself to guess; neither seemed like a safe option, at this point, and the room was so scrupulously bland in a very suspiciously _non_ -institutional way that she was left with no frame of reference.

Now that she could sit up and look around, she found that the contents of her room consisted of the bed she was on, the window she’d already found, and a dresser. A door faced her, and she didn’t see any evidence of a lock, but that didn’t mean anything, save that she couldn’t control whether or not anybody walked into the room. Slowly, in case whatever had happened to her head would hurt worse if she moved too quickly, Abigail pulled the covers off of herself and sat on the edge of the bed. She was wearing hospital garb. With a sigh, she leaned forward and reached for the dresser drawers. At least whoever had arranged this room had made sure it was within easy reach, and she didn’t need to worry about standing just yet.

Her clothes were inside the first drawer she tried. The same ones she’d been wearing when she’d gone to Minnesota with Will and found Hannibal so unexpectedly in her home when she ran from him. Abigail stared at them. The room was surreal enough; the hospital garb and her own clothing simply made it uncanny. Before she could worry herself out of the pretense of normalcy her clothes could give her, she grabbed her jeans and slowly put them on. As she’d expected, her headache increased the more she moved her head, but there was only so much she could do while getting dressed. At least she didn’t feel any blood dripping down the side of her head, and her hair, as it swung past her face, seemed clean.

Once dressed, she tried pulling the curtains back on the window, curious to see if she could get any hint of a location. The window stayed steadfastly blurry, and she swore at the frosted glass. The silhouette of tree branches could mean anything, in winter.

A knock sounded at the door, and she squeaked, turning too quickly. The door, therefore, opened while she was holding her head in her hands, bracing herself as she suppressed a surge of pain-induced nausea.

Footsteps. Quiet, precise. The door shut, and there was no click, no lock. If only she could move, she might be able to get free of whoever—

“Hello, Abigail.”

His voice, at least, left no doubt as to who her captor was. She raised her head and faced the man who had been her savior, her protector. Now he looked at her, dressed impeccably as ever, and all she could see was the same cold eyes as her father when he’d sent her out to draw in his prey, the same hard expression as Will had gotten as he stared at the antlers. The same expression, she had no doubt, that she’d had when she killed Nick Boyle.

“Hello, Hannibal,” she said. “What do you intend to do with me now?”

He smiled. “Now? Now, we dine.”

He offered her his hand, and she took it. She didn’t know what else to do. He raised it, kissed the back of her hand with dry lips and a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and she looked at him, body seizing up in fright.

She’d just sealed a devil’s bargain, and she didn’t even know what she’d sold.

She just knew that she’d need to follow him now, or else this time, she really would die.


End file.
